An international data protection and storage company is opening a warehouse operation in Stafford County.
Iron Mountain Inc. recently signed a long-term lease on a 140,545-square-foot building at 2031 International Parkway in the Virginia Gateway Distribution Center off U.S. 17 near the Interstate 95 interchange in Stafford.
Maryland-based Creany & Smith Group owns the Virginia Gateway Distribution Center, which includes space for another nearly 500,000 square feet of industrial buildings.
Iron Mountain will take the entire first building on the site, which was built in advance to attract a tenant. Rich McDaniel and Jeff Dowdell of CB Richard Ellis' Fredericksburg office represented the landlord. John Detleff with Grubb & Ellis represented Iron Mountain.
According to its Web site, Iron Mountain "helps organizations around the world reduce the costs and risks associated with information protection and storage." The publicly traded company is based in Boston.
Its Stafford operation, the company's first in the Fredericksburg area, will involve protecting and managing sensitive data belonging to private and public clients.
Most of Iron Mountain's clients in Stafford will be out of Northern Virginia and Washington, said Colleen Langevin, a vice president in Iron Mountain's marketing group. It's possible that Iron Mountain could later expand the operation on site.
The company has 16 other operations in Virginia totaling almost 1 million square feet, Lang-evin said. The Stafford operation will be one of its bigger ones in the state.
The company expects to hire about 24 people to staff the warehouse around the clock. That will include about 12 full-timers. Iron Mountain has started to build out the interior of the warehouse and expects to open late this summer.
Langevin said the company liked the site's security and proximity to Washington. She said Stafford officials were easy to work with.
Stafford Economic Development Director Tim Baroody said county officials have been meeting with Iron Mountain for about eight months.
"Stafford County is delighted for their investment," Baroody said.
Baroody commended the private sector for erecting the 140,545-square-foot building as a speculative project complete with water, sewer and other infrastructure. No public in-centives were involved. Baroody noted that the project shows there is local activity despite the weak economy.
"There are some good things happening in Stafford County," Baroody said.
Bill Freehling: 540/374-5405
Email: bfreehling@freelancestar.com